


Falling Up

by failsafe



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Family, Gen, Humor, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I had to, sir,” Raleigh explains desperately. Marshall's the one to answer to—he has to be—fixed point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Up

**Author's Note:**

> 'Religious Content' chose very loosely in that they kind of acknowledge God as a thing that exists.

The air feels humid in a way it should never be inside a sealed hull. At least, extreme humidity is the closest normal thing to what it's like to experience air running out by the breath.

Every movement is made uphill, and then when he's finally able to be still the burn doesn't stop.

Until it does and he's just sort of... floating.

Ejecting. Right. That's good.

And he's in a tiny thing that envelops him like a coffin until he's... not.

It's warm and he's still moving upward until there's a slight sensation of settling.

Lying on his back.

He hears a familiar voice.

“Oh for the love of—yes, I know, the actual love of—“

Raleigh isn't sure whether he's glad that Chuck's voice cuts off or not in something that sounds like anxious contrition. Chuck actually contrite about something.

He cracks open his eyes and he's surprised at the way everywhere he expects to feel pain—even the need to gasp for air down into his lungs—there's lightness. He isn't an old man and has never been one for complaining much, but his joints feel like he's seven years old and brand new. It feels so nice he has the strange, wild impulse to go literally climb the first tree he sees.

The next sound he hears is another familiar voice. At first it doesn't form a word but instead a throat-clearing rattle. Raleigh knows he's in trouble.

“Marshall—“ he says preemptively as he slides his hands along something that feels both like silk and cool marble against his hands, soothing and without flaw. He's ready to push himself up into a seated position.

“Be still, Ranger,” the Marshall replies—Stacker, _sensei,_ Raleigh's brain provides in quick succession. She calls him that. Sensei. She did. He'd heard her.

Raleigh doesn't disobey if only because lying on the perfect ground, feeling no uncomfortable pressure or any reason to shift around at all isdamn _nice_. When he looks up toward the ceiling—sky? which should it be?—he sees Stacker blocking his view. He's backlit, and he remembers seeing that in her mind—before.

“Is she—?” Stacker queries and his brow furrows in a way that seems to second guess. It makes Raleigh feel a pang of guilt and then immediately feel that the guilt is misplaced, like he shouldn't feel it anymore. Anymore.

“—No, Marshall,” he interrupts. “No, Stacker, she's fine. Gave her my oxygen,” he explains. Debriefing. That's normal. He wants to get it over with so he can see her. Mako's—

Raleigh stops.

His eyes are open wide and suddenly he's paying rapt, rapt attention to Stacker Pentecost. He spares a single glance toward Chuck Hansen who is standing at a distance just out of reach. He's standing there in his drivesuit, helmet stowed in an oddly cinematic fashion at his hip and beneath his arm. The sight of it seems so _right—_ and Raleigh hadn't been aware until that moment that he'd had a concept of what looked _right_ for Chuck Hansen—that it makes him draw a short, sharp breath and chuckle it back out. But then he feels a sting, a pull in his chest and he levels his gaze back up at Stacker.

Stacker is wearing his dark suit— _'looking sharp,'_ he remembers—once more. Not a drivesuit.

Raleigh swallows thickly but there's no discomfort, no ache that corresponds to the way he anticipates the hammering anxiety in his chest that only comes in strange, half-filtered waves. The ache is almost purely existential, deep down in something he can't touch but that feels far closer than it's ever been before, and it feels _wrong—_ premature, part of him supplies—because his body is forgetting in pieces how to feel it.

“No,” he says, suddenly roused and he would have sat up had Stacker's hand not pressed him back down by the center of the chest. He narrows his eyes up at his former superior—and he knows it's former, technically—with some suspicion now. He wonders why he wants to keep him down, what Stacker knows that he doesn't. And yet he's _hoping_ he does because this is wrong.

“Oh, goddamned _idiot—_ “ Chuck says, just audibly.

“Not quite damned, I think you'll find,” Stacker answers him without looking away from Raleigh's eyes. Then Raleigh's narrowed eyes are practically squinting to see whether or not the quirk of Stacker's lips is something he's imagining or not. The answer seems part of some peaceful rapport he could never have been so sure of before.

“I had to, sir,” Raleigh explains desperately. Marshall's the one to answer to—he has to be— _fixed point_. And yet it's bright and light and clean and Stacker Pentecost as never been in command in a world like that. Raleigh is afraid that here—wherever here is—it won't be enough. He feels a sense of waiting when everything is quiet—but it's calm, still, peaceful, and yet he's rattling apart inside and so calm on the outside that he could just fall asleep.

“Calm down, Mr. Becket,” Stacker advises. Raleigh wants to. He listens. He watches as Stacker's jaw sets and it looks something less that comfortable and Raleigh starts to smile because _that_ looks normal.

“... Okay,” Raleigh agrees, informally. For a moment. Then he once again can't obey. “But what do I do? I can't just— _you_ can't just—“ he's starting to accuse. “You didn't _see_ her—not really—when you... you can't just _do that_ to her!”

“I am gone, Mr. Becket. Dust from whence I came,” Stacker replies, and Raleigh wants to shiver—maybe recoil?—from the poetic tone Stacker takes when he's speaking so clearly and to the point. He's good at it.

“Yeah, okay,” Raleigh answers, shifting a little. He still feels absurdly flexible, fluid, but solid nonetheless. “... What about me?”

Raleigh watches as Stacker looks away from him and his muscles seem to flex. He knows he's getting ready to stand and, like a child, he reaches for the end of his coat, an unspoken request— _wait_.

Of course, Stacker doesn't wait and instead is once more standing to his full height above Raleigh, his posture perfect apart from the necessity to look down to meet Raleigh's eyes.

“Please. I'm sorry. I... saved her. I had to,” he begs.

“Ranger—“ Stacker says, and it's that deceptive calm that has always, always been right at the heart of the storm. The hurricane. Raleigh is quiet, still, straight along his own spine as he's at attention on the floor. He senses it—yet another _last order—_ and he hopes it isn't a vain, stupid hope. Reaching for Yancy in his dreams and trying to cling to the tether when he wakes up kind of hope. Yancy. For just a moment he considers, looks around as far as he can see from his position, but everything is just clean, not yet formed, and there's no one else around. He could go to him, he realizes—Yancy is _somewhere_ , no matter how deep the aching, imperfect, terrible void. But he can feel another void now, too, aching and fresh and still filled with something warm and beating. Against his chest and from the inside.

On his neck and hot. Tickling at the nape of his neck. He feels heavy again and it's starting to burn. His lungs.

Temptation gone, he snaps his eyes back up to Stacker's again and pays perfect attention.

“—return to your post.”

Raleigh's eyes close and he doesn't open them again. The air is cooler around him but there is still something warm on his neck and cheek. His lungs are tight and his throat feels just a little crushed but bit by bit through the strain his lungs are filling once again with clean, clear ocean air.

“ _Don't go, please...”_

It comes from far away at first. Then closer. Real.

“Don't go, please...”

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I wanted to write this because of a small section of Rent (as in the musical) that kept coming back to mind when I saw the scene of Mako holding Raleigh's limp, seemingly (and probably) dead body to her. Spoiler explanation/reminder: at the end, Mimi dies and is held by her love interest, Roger, and then she begins to stir. Then she explains (of a friend who died earlier in the movie/play): "I was headed toward this warm, white light, and I swear Angel was there. And she looked good. And she said, 'Turn around, girlfriend, and _listen_ to that boy's song.'" So basically I'm a stupid sap and wrote this. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
